In the age of Botox, the commercialization of everything from eyelash tinting to spray tanning and the continued growth of fad diets and trendy exercise regimens, being “perfect” has never been so attainable nor the pursuit so tempting. As The New York Times
recognized, in the last decade “the body became the new attire, a mutable status symbol subject to trends in proportion, silhouette, technology, and disposable income.”

So The Daily Beast sought to figure out which major metro areas across the country exert the most effort to look good—by spending time in the spa, sweating in the gym, or shelling out for personal-care products.

To focus on which cities are most successful at keeping their waists whittled, we then measured the percentage of residents for each city was neither overweight nor obese, according to BMI statistics tabulated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most crucially, because fitness and exercise can also be a mark of health independent of vanity, we ranked these cities based on average household monthly spending on personal care—which encompasses costs from drugstores, cosmetic stores, spas, gyms, and salons, according to
Bundle.com, a database of spending data culled from government and private sources. This criteria carried a double weight in our rankings.